Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Looks like they're tearing down all of that building on the huge lot between Bedford and Berry down around N 4th St. I don't now why I just figured they were keeping the painted walls like some kind of preservation effort. I guess I was wrong. These are on tip-toe, reaching over the wood fence.

Monday, June 26, 2006

All these Spider Man 3 photos make me look like a weirdo groupie, but it's not every day a blockbuster is shot on your block and I don't want to spend the rest of the month posting in dribs and drabs, so here's what I took of the Spider Man shoot today. The Tobey Maguire photos are here.There were three sets, Thames at Trinity, Trinity at Rector, and Rector between Greenwich and Washington. I don't think there are any spoilers in here, but they are photos of the movie being made, so there may be a clue or two.These folks are packed in because they think Fake Tobey is Tobey.Below, the lights from Trinity Place shine down Rector on the spectators watching the Rector St. set. Very Close Encounters.Below, someday Sidewalk Extra #2 will be famous and I'll have this cool shot of him.Above, The extras line up behind a screen and wait for the command to walk down the sidewalk pretending it's raining. Below, the rain guy holds the sprinkler in the air so the water falls on Tobey's head. Hollywood magic!Below, on tip toes for Tobey.I had a lot of fun taking advantage of the movie lighting on Trinity Place. Even to my camera it looks like a Spider Man movie.

I saw two fake Tobeys in today's shoots. Not decoys, but subs for the non-acting stuff. At the set on Thames and also Rector, fake Tobey did blocking (where to stand) and lighting. I took a bunch of pictures of him before realizing it was the wrong guy. He's the one pointing in the top photo. Way on the right by the alley on Rector.Fake Tobey #2 was stunt Tobey. On Trinity Place, he rode a fake bike bolted to a flatbed trailer. He had a wire harness on and after rolling for a bit, the flew off the bike with arms flailing and his helmet flying off. I took these photos around 10 p.m. It's now 1:30 a.m. and I can see the movie lights are still on over there. It could be that by now real Tobey is over there.Quien es mas macho, Real Tobey or Stunt Tobey?

As a photoblogger with a major motion picture shooting right outside my door, naturally I shot a billion pictures. Of course, the first question is whether I got the star. In my defense, I shoot with a pretty shot focus lens (28mm on a mid-size camera works out to about 35mm) so I don't have a zoom or anything.It's pretty cool when you look out the front door and see Tobey Maguire walk by, but it's frustrating when you're behind him and can only get a picture of his back.But then all the people who are craning their necks trying to see if he's on the set don't realize he's right behind them trying to get by, which is just enough of a delay for me to get a pretty good close shot.Below he's third from the left. The scene will eventually be shot in that alley.He briefly wore a dark sweater, below.By the way, this is Rector St. between Greenwich & Washington. The alley is a perfect film location (as so many spots downtown are) and only runs as far as the back of the Pussycat Lounge. It's too narrow to have a name of its own as far as I know, and it certainly doesn't need any Hollywood magic to make it a creepy place.Below is later in the evening after a wardrobe change. Now all in black, Peter Parker checks out the alley after a considerable amount of time has been spent blocking and lighting the scene with a stand-in.That bottle in his hand is that Bawls soda that comes in the knobby blue bottle.OK, this one below is the back of his head, but what you can't see is that the director has called, "Action," so this could be the actual scene that ends up in the movie. The scene itself, or what I saw of it, is pretty meager. He looks up a little, I think upset. It's raining on him. He leaves the alley.Because they had fake rain going in the alley, each take meant he got wet. The extras all carried umbrellas and pretended it was raining. But for some reason he wasn't supposed to look wet when he got to the alley, so between takes they'd blow-dry him.